Futsal Focus Street Futsal Championship participant – Rosario Futsal Club

4 days to go to the first ever UK Street Futsal Championship taking place in London at the Westway Sports & Fitness Centre

Clubs are coming from across the UK to compete against each other and lift the first ever Street Futsal Championship, the Futsal Focus Street Futsal Championship

One of the competing clubs competing is from Belfast in Northern Ireland, Rosario Futsal Club!

The Futsal section of our club was established in June 2019, however, Rosario is a well established respected club within N. Ireland, and has over 1000 members with teams ranging from mini soccer, girls and ladies teams, senior sides, and an over 35 ex players team.

We put together a futsal team mainly due to the fact that we all played 5 a side quite a lot, and a few of us had played for other futsal teams with some success so we felt why not put together a team to compete in the league.

In our first year as a club we exceeded all expectations, our goal was just to compete and aim for a top 4 or 5 finish as we knew there were more experienced teams in the league but from early doors we could see we were able to compete with the best and give a good account of ourselves. This gave us belief and although we took a fee defeats prior to COVID hitting we were on an 8 game winning streak and had beaten previous year double champions Sparta in the Cup. COVID parked proceedings for a bit then the Irish Football Association (IFA) decided to finish the season with a knockout cup between top 4 in the division. We managed to defeat Omagh in a tough semi-final then we defeated a very good Belfast United in the final which was a fantastic achievement meaning in our first year as a club we were N. Ireland champions and went to represent the country in the UEFA Futsal Champions League playing a sensational side, the Ukrainian champions Kherson. An experience of a lifetime with veteran Barry Baggley scoring Rosario first ever goal in Europe.

This year again due to COVID, the IFA decided to play a knockout to choose European representatives and unfortunately Belfast United got revenge by beating us in the semi-final. It has been a whirlwind and fairytale story too date..

Our values are based on we work hard and enjoy it. Lots of us are in the twilight of our footballing days so we cherish each game. We play to win and we do the jersey proud. Our goals is to grow the team, getting younger lads involved and continue to compete with the best in the country. We have had a taste of success and the exposure it got the wider club was superb so we want to build on that.

In the next 5 years, firstly, we hope to get back on the court and competing weekly after such a long layoff, after that, we want to introduce new players to the squad and we already have a few new signings for the season ahead. We want to develop futsal within the club, and our younger sides as it will help them improve as players, and hopefully we will find a few future internationals.

Rosario are competing in Group B of the Futsal Focus Street Futsal Championship, and their fixtures on the day are:

• 11:22 am v Reading Royals Futsal Club
• 13:00 pm v Cambridge Futsal Club
• 15:10 pm v Bloomsbury Futsal
• 16:43 pm v Bedford Futsal Club

To find out the rest of the day’s fixtures, click on here

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